Hi everyone! I'm a chemical engineering student graduating in April 2026 and am trying to land a new graduate or engineer-in-training role before I graduate and have been applying to these roles since September. However, I am struggling to land interviews since I was only able to get one interview with a mining company and that flopped because they had a strong preference for mining engineering candidates.
I've applied to a lot more roles over this winter break but I'm feeling unsure on whether I should return to the company where I completed my 16-month co-op term for a full-time position. They told me I should reach out in January but am on the fence about it. Even though I thought my co-op experience was positive, my manager was amazing, and I enjoyed working with nearly all of the people at my workplace, there were some moments where I felt some of the work was not helping with advancing my professional development as a chemical engineering major.
There was also a coworker that I felt really uncomfortable working with in my group that I was constantly being assigned to work with.
He was difficult to understand at times and wasn't the most helpful with training me as a co-op student. He would mumble and say incoherent sentences which made it difficult for me to completely follow his instructions and then he would get disappointed or lowkey frustrated with me even though I was following his instructions as closely as I could. Whenever I would ask him clarifying questions he would either take forever to respond or have confusing responses that weren't very helpful.
I didn't find this experience with any of my other coworkers while working there the entire time except with this person specifically.
Part of me wants to return but another part of me knows that if I return I will be assigned to the same group where I would have to work with that individual for a significant portion of my time there and that part alone is kind of discouraging.
What should I do in this situation?